


The Avatar’s Challenge

by Alarai



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types
Genre: Battle Royale - Freeform, Bending battle scenes are my favorite, Enemies to Amicable Associates, F/F, Jaina is the Avatar don’t come for me, Master x Avatar dynamic, Pre-Scourge, Sylvanas has Kuvira vibes and it is known, Sylvanas is alive, They end up as friends kinda it’s okay, atla crossover, bending badasses, sorry I cant write canon WoW stuff so I make up my own shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:07:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24636550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alarai/pseuds/Alarai
Summary: “I owe you nothing, Jaina Proudmoore, but if it’s a fight you want it’s a fight you’ll get. Three days from now, near the shore. At midnight. We’ll fight on equal ground.”For all the steeling she had attempted, Jaina wasn’t prepared for the frigid chill that licked up her spine and brought the hair on her neck to stand tall at the sight of feral eyes peering at her over a slender shoulder.“Come prepared. I won’t hesitate to kill you.”
Relationships: Jaina Proudmoore/Sylvanas Windrunner
Comments: 3
Kudos: 51





	The Avatar’s Challenge

**Author's Note:**

> I rewatched all of Avatar: the Last Airbender the past two days and have been reading the book on Kyoshi here recently. As a result, that means I took my two favorite ladies and put them in my favorite universe, because WoW canon usually just makes me angry. I’m not sorry for this outcome.
> 
> Jaina is only about 19 at this point and this takes place prior to Arthas (obviously). Sylvanas is still very much alive and Quel’thalas is thriving. Azeroth is still relatively the same but people can bend instead of use magic. 
> 
> We’re here for a good time, not a long time okay?
> 
> But will I probably still write more snippets and vignettes to add to this...more than likely.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

“Again.”

Jaina growled from her position on the sun-scorched earth, molten sweat sticking to dry earth that rose around her in a cloud of contempt that clogged her lungs and tickled at her nose. Her hands reflexively flexed into fists she wanted to slam into the ground, wishing, hoping that it would obey her command and split the earth in two.

And swallow whole the holder of the disinterested voice floating from the other side of the ring.

“We’ve been doing this for hours,” she ground out, coming to a seated position and squinting as the sun’s rays slanted diagonally across her vision. They’d been at this since sunrise, to be specific, and now it was near dusk. “We’ve gotten nowhere.”

“And you believe that to be my fault?” the voice asked again, disembodied from it’s form by the harsh rays, but matter-of-fact. She didn’t need to see Sylvanas to know she had adopted her quintessential stance, her feet spread shoulder length apart and her hands clasped behind her back.

“Well seeing as how you’re supposed to be my teacher...” Jaina mumbled under her breath, rubbing the dirt from her eyes and moving to stand despite every muscle in her body screaming bloody murder.

Jaina didn’t notice a single elongated ear quirk and didn’t think Sylvanas had heard her when she extended her right hand in a “as you were” fashion. The blonde sighed heavily and adopted her horse stance, breathing through the fire in her legs and back, and settling deep until her thighs were parallel to the ground.

Sylvanas stalked towards her like a sabre she had never quite seen before, a cross with a shirshu’s vicious intensity and the sturdy gait of the snow leopard caribou she had seen in the more frigid, mountainous regions of her homeland. But neither beast quite held up to the shining grey eyes that lacked any emotion and left her feeling flayed with every passing moment she tried to maintain her breathing, maintain her stance.

In all actuality Sylvanas didn’t appear to be much older than she, youthful and beautiful, but she came recommended to her decorated as a military general ten times over and with bending prowess unheard of in centuries. Her people knew her as a wondrous hero, her enemies knew her as “the Banshee Queen;” a demon on the battlefield that left spirits screaming in her wake long after their corporeal deaths.

And yet she hadn’t seen this woman move one pebble in the months she had been training with her.

The kick to her ankle startled her from her reverie and sent her crumbling to the ground again. This time her fists furiously collided with the packed earth below her as the shadow of the Banshee Queen blocked the setting sun from view.

“You’re distracted. If you’re going to waste my time, go home. I have matters of great importance to attend to outside of teaching you an element you seem expressly determined to fail at.”

“How the hell am I supposed to learn anything from you when we’ve done nothing but meditation, and stances, and stamina training? I know less about earthbending now than I did when I got here three months ago,” Jaina spat, wondering if she lashed out from this angle if she could shatter the elf’s ankle...just for fun.

“Then you _have_ improved,” Sylvanas sighed sarcastically. “Because what little you knew about earthbending was completely baseless and formed without appropriate foundations or discipline. Your prior knowledge was worthless, and here I thought you’ve accomplished nothing.”

Fire burned from deep in Jaina’s chest, and ice blue eyes flared as she rose to her feet once again and spat at the General’s feet. “I hate you.”

“I don’t care.” There was that stance again. That fucking emotionless, blank, statuesque stance that belied any humanity and feeling.

“Allow me to enlighten you, Jaina,” Sylvanas started before Jaina could hurl her fist right into the elf’s perfect nose. “I am not here for you to like me. I am here to train you, and as such, my tutelage was never meant to be easy.”

She started pacing again, circling. Sizing her up from all angles as she tracked slow circles around Jaina. Jaina had never noticed before, but Sylvanas didn’t even leave footprints in the dusty earthen ring they stood in.

“Much to my disappointment, it seems you learned very little in Kul Tiras,” she started, moving behind Jaina fully. “You were born into your position, and gifted with great power when it comes to waterbending...but you clearly never had to work to achieve that power.”

Two fingers sharply jabbed into Jaina’s bare lower back, shooting pain up her spine and stealing the air from her lungs. Her shoulders surged back reflexively. 

“Your posture is disgraceful,” Sylvanas started again. “You’ve never learned to be disciplined, to work, to achieve small and steady victories to reach your greater pay out.”

“You simply spent your life with your head in books and scrolls, without experiencing the world proper until someone told you to do so. And when you did...? You took natural raw power and wield it like a child flailing with a toy sword.”

“You are weak,” Sylvanas stated matter-of-factly, settling into her soldier’s rest in front of her again, barely a hair’s breadeth away from her. “You set off on your journey to master the other elements simply because someone told you to. How you were deemed a master of waterbending with what little basics you know is beyond me, but now you stand here, in my domain, and presume to assign the fault to me? Simply because I am your teacher?”

What little space was between them was unnerving, when Sylvanas somehow leaned even closer it took all of Jaina’s restraint not to step back, not to retreat.

“I am already a master of what you are supposed to be training for, little Avatar. It is not my success being measured here,” the indifferent lilting Jaina was used to steered closer to a snarl, the tiniest show of fangs appearing from beneath Sylvanas’ lips pulled tight over her teeth. Her heart started to race, despite the hold she had over keeping her body still. She had never seen Sylvanas bend, but she could see the reputation of a apocalyptic warmonger cracking through the usual neutral demeanor.

_That’s it._

“Hard to measure your success, truly, when I haven’t seen it first hand, Banshee,” she hissed, smirking as Sylvanas’ eyes flared and narrowed on her.

“What?” The taunt rolled easily off her tongue, her sing-song intonation adding injury to insult. “Don’t like being called that, do you? Hard to believe you’ve earned such a title when I’ve yet to see one ounce of bending out of you. For all I know you could be a fraud, a puppet.”

“I see no _Queen_ ,” she spat, pulling up her shoulders and shoving her chin forward. “Only a miserable, wretched shell of a being.”

“Your words don’t cut like you think they do,” Sylvanas ground out, but the clench of her jaw was audible.

Jaina reached up and tapped at Sylvanas jaw, tense and threatening to dislocate if she pushed much harder. “This says otherwise, that and the vein that might burst near your temple. What about all that _discipline_ , Master Windrunner? Are you truly that bothered by the words of a _child_?”

“ _What do you want?_ ” Sylvanas hissed, teeth gnashing and her eyes glowing brighter than the last vestiges of white light shooting from the sun creeping closer to the horizon. “Is it a fight you want? A demonstration of my power, of how I earned that _gods forsaken name_? Would you like to see how I earned the blood on my hands?”

Jaina tried to save face, but something shifted. Behind her raging anger, her hatred, her discontent - her heart broke. Just barely, as she watched Sylvanas slip for the first time. Guilt bubbled from the schism but she had dug this hole, she’d see it through. 

“Yes,” she said simply, far quieter than she intended. “Prove to me you’re the master everyone says you are, and I’ll prove I’m a student worth keeping.”

Sylvanas bodily pushed by her, mumbling quick Thalassian under her breath Jaina couldn’t catch. 

“I owe you nothing, Jaina Proudmoore, but if it’s a fight you want it’s a fight you’ll get. Three days from now, near the shore. At midnight. We’ll fight on equal ground.”

For all the steeling she had attempted, Jaina wasn’t prepared for the frigid chill that licked up her spine and brought the hair on her neck to stand tall at the sight of feral eyes peering at her over a slender shoulder.

“Come prepared. I won’t hesitate to kill you.”

***

The dawn of the third day brought Jaina sweet relief in regards to the aching pain wracking her body. Her legs were stiff and her arms sluggish, but the searing pain had finally subsided and some gentle stretching helped breath life back into her tired form. She had stayed curled up in her rooms most of the day, reading her bending scrolls and ancient history texts over the steaming cup of coffee she had managed to procure, but any amount of food she thought of consuming sent her stomach into a spin at the mere sight of it. Her morning meditations did little to quell the roiling in her gut, and with a final breath she slumped forward with her head in her hands, her fingers massaging at her temples where a headache threatened to break.

She hated to admit it, but she was fucking _terrified._

Why she was so scared was beyond her. She had faced countless waterbending masters in her training, and even a few masters from the lands of air and fire that had visited Kul Tiras to witness the Avatar’s latest reincarnation. None of those battles were easy, by any stretch of the imagination, but she had shown her prowess well enough to be granted her next step in her journey.

Maybe it was the feral, near _demonic_ , disposition Sylvanas seemed to adopt at the drop of a hat. Maybe it was simply because she had never seen the master bend, let alone fight. She was walking into the challenge utterly blind, without any real knowledge of her style or prowess beyond legends and war stories.

“I really am an idiot,” Jaina whispered to herself, before she glanced up and stared blankly forward at the barren plaster wall before her. She knew she should practice, warm up and prepare herself, but she simply had no inclination of what she was truly going up against and wanted to reserve her energy for her evening plans.

“She wouldn’t _really_ try and kill me,” she huffed, leaning back against her bed and resting her head against the mattress. Despite her words, her heart clenched, quivered. She didn’t believe her words, not when the grating, cool lick of Sylvanas promise kept crooning in her ear.

_I won’t hesitate...little Avatar._

Jaina shot to her feet without further hesitation and promptly left her rooms, ducking out of the barracks she had been housed in in southern Quel’Thalas. She would go for a run, at least. Warm her body up, try and take her mind off the fear settling into the very blood that coursed through her veins.

_If you won’t hesitate, Sylvanas, I won’t either...and my defense is much greater than anything you could hope to defend against._

***

The moon hung low and full in the sky when Jaina broke through the tree line and felt the lick of soft, sun-warmed sand brush against her bare feet. The waves broke in a beautiful chorus along the shore, singing a song that she often felt only she could truly appreciate as she drew closer and closer to the black abyss of the ocean. The first touch of cool water brought a surge of energy that flowed up her spine, rang in her ears. For the first time in weeks the burden of the forest seemed to lift from her shoulders and she finally felt centered, calm...

...powerful.

“I’m surprised you came.” The voice broke her from her thoughts, but she didn’t jump, didn’t startle. She hadn’t heard Sylvanas approach, but she had felt her nearby, her senses heightened by the full moon lighting a path across the ocean to fall directly upon her.

Sylvanas, as always, was dressed in her Ranger’s combat uniform. Dark doeskin boots muffled her already light steps. A black undershirt and tight-fitting pants that were molted to provide camouflage amongst the dense Quel’thalas canopy kept the General hidden until she stepped into the light. Moonlight caught her ash blonde hair, her steel-colored eyes, and sucked the evidence of many days spent training in the sun from her skin in an instant.

_She does look like a banshee...silver light enrobed in shadows._

But Jaina thought it better to keep that thought silent.

“I’m not a coward,” she stated, instead. “I wasn’t going to back out.”

“Could have fooled me,” Sylvanas deadpanned without an ounce of humor in her voice. “I saw you pacing around the barracks for most of the day, after nearly running yourself ragged.”

“I’m anxious to put you in your place, is all,” Jaina smirked, turning to face Sylvanas fully. “Now, are you going to flirt with me all night or are you here to fight me properly?”

Sylvanas chuckled, actually chuckled, but didn’t move from her resting stance. “By all means, little Avatar. When you’re ready.”

Jaina stared at her, waiting to see if Sylvanas would settle herself into a stance. When none came, she huffed and stepped back into the water - the waves rising to lick at the back of her calves. Her eyes closed, despite the voice at the back of her mind screaming for her to keep her eyes on the Ranger. Her lungs expanded with the crest of the waves behind her, emptied with their rush to the shore. Her eyes opened, met the unmoved general, and her left hand, previously palm down and lax at her hip, cut in front of her body and shot out like a serpent.

A thick column of water shot from her right, dark and changing, to level straight at the banshee. Sylvanas, blank-faced and unrelenting, side stepped the attack without so much as lifting a finger.

Jaina moved, stepping into a deeper stance and whipping a thinner, more accurate shot of water in Sylvanas direction before spinning and redirecting her initial attack towards her target from her flank. Again, the earthbender sidestepped the attacks like a dancer, her eyes perfectly trained on Jaina even as she ducked the attack at her back.

“Is that all you’ve got...seriously?” Sylvanas asked. “You have much to learn about the offensive position, little Avatar.”

Jaina’s teeth gnashed together, but she didn’t stop her onslaught, moving in deep, fluid motions to lob shot after shot off on the Banshee. Switching between water barrages, ice attacks, and attempting to freeze the ground beneath Sylvanas’ feet. The elf danced around all of it, ducking and leaping around every attack she threw at her, all without breaking a sweat.

When the elf landed from her most recent jump, and rolled away from Jaina’s latest attack, she stood and loosened her shoulders. “I’m bored.”

Despite her obvious agility, Jaina didn’t anticipate just _how_ fast the elf was. Her eyes widened as Sylvanas slammed her foot into the ground and raised a mighty slab of rock in front of her, completely blocking her from view.

Then she started to attack.

Razor sharp needles of rock surged from Sylvanas’ barrier, aiming for Jaina in the hundreds. Over the blood rushing in her ears, she could hear each quick, concise punch Sylvanas was throwing, slicing away at her own protection.

Jaina dodged, albeit weakly, and used quick whipping attacks to break the rocks midflight. She turned in her stance and shot her hands out, but cried out and fell back into the water when a large boulder hurdled her way and slammed into her shoulder.

“Neutral jing,” Sylvanas quipped, the last of her shield falling away as she stepped back lightly on the balls of her feet with her hands held in a loose boxer’s stance. “Hold your position and wait for an opening.”

Sylvanas heel barely touched against the shore when three massive, flat stones rose before her. A quick side kick sent the first one flying directly for Jaina, still supine near the surf, while the other two followed with quick jabs from the Ranger’s fist.

Jaina swung her arms around her, lifting her up in a column of ocean spray before it dissipated at the exact moment for her to step off the first stone. 

_”What am I fucking doing?”_ she thought, as her legs moved of their own volition, kicking off one platform to land on the next, then the next, until she launched off the final step close to Sylvanas and spun tightly in the air. Ice curled in a jagged wall in front of the ranger, while a surging wave rose up and around the Avatar, crashing into the blonde elf and sending her flying bodily into the frigid blockade.

Barely a grunt, that’s all she had earned for her efforts before Sylvanas ran a hand down her face and smirked. “Good, but always be prepared for your enemy’s next step.”

Suddenly, Sylvanas was gone, swallowed into the earth beneath her. Jaina’s feet touched the ground, and not a moment later a hand clasped around her ankle, locking her in place.

Rock surged up to her calves, before Sylvanas’s head poked up from beneath the sand, that same feral gleam to her eye cutting her pupils into her slits as moonlight glanced off her pointed fangs.

Materializing from the sand, Sylvanas spun on her toe and kicked Jaina just beneath the slope of her chest, releasing her hold and sending the waterbender flying into the cliff’s edge along the shore’s northern point. Jaina fell to her knees, the copper tinge of blood marring her tongue and splattering the sand beneath her hands. Her breath tried to rush to her in broken, wheezing gasps as Sylvanas advanced slowly, stalking her like this was a simple game of cat and mouse, like she had already won.

_“Move, damn you!”_ Jaina cursed internally as her legs shook to try and stand, but before she could pull herself to her full height, long, slender fingers wrapped around her throat and lifted her fully off the ground.

She clawed at the slender hand, instinctually, her lungs still burning, screaming, from the vicious kick that sent her 20 feet across the open shoreline. She gasped, coughed, kicked against her assailant, but Sylvanas remained unmoved.

“I told you I would not hesitate to kill you,” she crooned, tightening the hold on Jaina’s pale neck and digging her nails into the cords of muscle that bulged against the stress. Her wrist barely flicked as she sent Jaina sailing again, this time towards the wall of ice cutting across the beach.

Jaina had just enough time to twitch her fingers and sail through falling water before hitting the packed sand. Her coughing grew fervent, her throat raw and burning, as she fought for air and tried scrambling to her feet. 

She moved in just enough time to avoid the keening slice of something, not unlike earth, strike into the sand where her head once was. A metal arrow stuck from the sand and shimmered stark white against the muted colors of the natural world.

“You...you’re a metalbender?” Jaina choked, unsteadily pushing to her feet and avoiding another arrow that sailed over her shoulder. “Since...since when is that possible?”

“Since I developed it,” Sylvanas said, raising thin coverings of rock over her outstretched hands and forming then into dagger-sharp points of refined, unbreakable steel. “Am I _worthy_ of serving you now, little Avatar?”

The last point she didn’t manage to miss, and the unyielding tip lodged deep into her shoulder. Pain seared down her right arm like hellfire and her cry of pain cut through the air and sent wild fowl deep in the woods flying from their nests. Blood poured hot and vicious down the front of her white tunic, and stained the surf red at her feet. Her knees quaked and she stumbled in place, only able to hold her left hand in a defensive stance as the right hung useless at her side.

Sylvanas smirked, twisted her feet, ground her stance and with quick, jabbing motions sent three concise waves of metal spikes sailing from her hands.

All at once the adrenaline disappeared and Jaina’s heart sunk as the blood pumped hard and heavy in her ears. She was going to die...this was the end.

And then she saw stark, hot white.

Power surged through her body and the pain evaporated like morning dew under the elven sun. The sea swallowed her, surrounded her, then shot her towards the moon in a show of power unlike what she had ever experienced before.

She wasn’t in control of the sweeping movement of her arms, the vicious waves that rose thirty feet in the air and crashed upon the shore with devastating force. She didn’t process the wicked snapping of tree trunks like brittle kindling, or the shattering of the cliffside that gave away like glass. She barely felt the surge of fire that left her mouth as she screamed, in fear, and in pain, or the cutting whip of the ocean winds she used to slash the beach in half, with Sylvanas on it, wide-eyed and terrified.

She saw white, and then simply, nothing at all.

***

Her head was pounding when she woke, the force in her temples threatening to split her head in half. She groaned, then regretted it immediately as fire corded up the length of her throat and ended her groan as a pitiful whimper. Everything hurt. How was she alive?

“Don’t move,” that voice was familiar...but different. Soft, where she expected rough and cold. Calloused fingers touched her cheek to grab her attention, and cool hands grounded her against the heat of pain rolling through her body.

“You’re still healing,” that voice said, before tapering to the point of a whisper. “You’ve been out cold for the past three days.”

Jaina was finally able to crack her eyes open, thankful for the soft firelight gently coaxing her swollen eyes back from blindness.

Ashen hair swam into view, with soft grey eyes and tan skin. The cool hand moved into her hair and ghosted across the crown of her head; traced down to the back of her skull.

“Sylvanas?” Her voice cracked, and cool water touched her lips as the hand at her head lifted her gently. The muscles in her neck screamed in protest, her throat fought against swallowing, but the frigid touch down her throat was welcome and soothing.

“Try not to speak too much,” Sylvanas muttered, resting her head back and moving her hand to settle against Jaina’s forehead. “I acted out of turn, and caused you serious injury...and forced you into something I don’t believe you were quite ready for.”

She paused. Eons seemed to pass in a second and Jaina’s vision swirled into black.

She wasn’t sure what Sylvanas had said after that, but she faintly remembered a broken “I’m sorry,” before she succumbed, once again, to unconsciousness.

***

Awaking the second time was slower, but more stable. Her body still ached, her throat still screamed, and she could still register a cool touch against her hand before she finally opened her eyes and blinked against the light flitting in from the window in her room.

She coughed, aggressively, and rested back wheezing before water touched her lips again and she looked up to see the Ranger hovering over her, her brows knit in worry and her lips sealed into a tight line.

“You’re still here?” Jaina asked, her voice a gravely husk of it’s usual power.

“I haven’t left,” the elf answered honestly, sitting back and reluctantly pulling the water and her hand back to settle in her lap. “Jaina...I’m sorry. My actions were baseless and unrestrained. I should have never agreed to fight with you, and I should have never tried to attack you in the way I did.”

Jaina’s cracked lips turned up in a smirk, splitting against the strain. A touch of blood dotted her pallid flesh with color, but the waterbender cared little about the pinprick of pain that followed. “I asked for it,” she said simply, “and from what I remember...I actually got a genuine compliment out of you.”

“Jaina, I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

The general sighed, stood from her seat at Jaina’s bedside, and began to pace the room. “I would understand if you chose to leave Quel’thalas after this, to find a new bending master. I’d encourage you to do so, my lack of patience is honorless and I shouldn’t be trusted to teach you what you need to know. I have already notified our King...I will likely face a court marshal for this, but would welcome worse-“

“Will you sit down?” Jaina groaned, turning her head away. “You’re making me sick.”

Sylvanas stopped and sighed, slinking back to her chair and settling in it heavily. She didn’t know what to do when Jaina reached her hand out and settled it against her knee, but she took it into her palm anyway, and closed her other hand over the feverish, clammy skin.

“No need for a court marshal,” Jaina sighed, attempting to squeeze the Ranger’s hand but only succeeding in scratching her nails against her wrist. “You fought me in the way my enemies will...with intent to kill. You were teaching me to survive and adapt.”

“I attacked you out of a place of anger, which is wildly inappropriate for a master, and a General,” Sylvanas stated, her fingers nervously drawing against the back of Jaina’s hand. “You are young and full of energy, despite what you may believe...I am not. I should have acted accordingly.”

Jaina sighed and moved to sit up, despite Sylvanas’ insistence otherwise. With time and a great deal of effort, Jaina came to a sitting position with her legs hanging from her bedside, her hand outstretched to rest on Sylvanas’ shoulder.

“What happened was not a fault on your end alone,” Jaina sighed, casting her eyes down from the steel grasp of the General’s gaze. “I spoke out of turn, with intent to hurt you. To goad you, and push you to fight me in a way that was unrestrained, careless, and stupid.”

“And cruel,” she finished, meekly. “I’m sorry, Sylvanas. I should have never said what I did.”

Sylvanas sighed and raised one hand to rest against Jaina’s wrist. “It seems there is much we still need to learn about each other, isn’t there?”

Jaina smirked again, squeezing Sylvanas’ shoulder. “That...does typically require you to at least _try_ to be open with me. Just a little bit.”

Sylvanas small smile fell, and she gently removed the Avatar’s hand from her shoulder; standing and moving to the other side of the room. “I will be honest, that is not something I am well versed in. And unfortunately I do not believe your journey will continue with me at your side. What’s done is done, Jaina.”

“No, it is not,” Jaina insisted, rising to her feet and crying out as she stumbled forward. Sylvanas moved in a flash, her hands steady against Jaina’s hips, holding her still until Jaina could hold herself upright on her own.

“I’ll speak to King Anasterian,” Jaina said. “I’ll explain what happened. If you’re to be held responsible, I will be as well. But it isn’t his choice who will be my master...”

Sylvanas paused, her eyes widening just barely. Jaina moved, slowly, carefully, and hinged just barely at her hips with her hands held tight at her side.

“I want it to be you,” Jaina muttered, tears pricking at her eyes from pain coursing through her body and turbulent regret in her heart. “I would be honored if you trained me.”

Sylvanas smiled, the first time Jaina had ever seen her smile and shook her head as Jaina straightened. “You’ve got it all wrong, little Avatar.”

Sylvanas hand raised, crossed over her heart in a Ranger’s salute, and she bowed her head. “The honor is all mine, Avatar Jaina. I’m confused...and humbled by your choice.”

Jaina smiled, wavered on her feet, and settled down to sit on the edge of her bed before Sylvanas moved closer and took up in her usual chair.

“Sooo...metalbending, huh?”

“Not gonna happen, Proudmoore. You can barely hold your horse stance.”

“But one day, right?” Jaina asked, grinning despite the pull to her dried lips; her eyes alight with excitement.

The General shook her head, pinching at the bridge of her nose, and visibly fighting to contain the infectious grin on the Avatar’s face spreading to her own.

“Maybe one day.”


End file.
